Fish Factor: International currency variations affect seafood marketsBetween 60 and 70 percent of Alaska’s seafood is exported to customers around the globe, and the strength of foreign currencies against the US dollar plays a big role in annual sales. Tracking by the Juneau-based McDowell Group for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute shows mid-year ups and dow...

Fish Factor: Time for salmon seasonIt might still feel like winter but Alaska’s 2013 salmon season will officially get underway on May 16, when the first runs of reds and kings are scheduled to arrive at Copper River. The season’s first fish will attract the usual media hoopla — helicopters whisking salmon from the fishing grounds...

Fish Factor: Chess match begins for trawl fisheriesFishing industry stakeholders and federal managers in June will begin crafting a bycatch reduction plan for trawl groundfish fisheries in the Gulf. It will include some form of catch share plan, and as the main delivery port for more than $100 million worth of pollock, cod, flats and other fishes...

Fish Factor: Chinook research money passes through legislatureChinook salmon research money made it through the Alaska legislature this session, but most other fish bills flopped. “The department asked and the legislature funded,” said Kevin Brooks, deputy commissioner of the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game. “There is a little bit of repackaging, if you will,...

Fish Factor: Research center studies crabsDid you know that red king crabs are cannibals and eat their babies, but blue king crabs do not? Or that deep water golden king crabs along the Aleutian Islands are almost indestructible and appear to resist the effects of ocean acidification? Those are just a few of the secrets being revealed at...

Fish Factor: Halibut season off to slow startAbsent from supermarket fliers this spring have been ads featuring the year’s first fresh halibut, reflecting the anticipated push back by buyers to the high priced fish. “No ads in the papers. No excitement this year,” said more than one major buyer. In recent years, dwindling supplies of halibu...

Comfish will offer additional insight into Gulf catch share optionsA new plan to reduce bycatch by trawlers is being crafted by federal managers for Gulf of Alaska groundfish fisheries, and it likely will result in a catch share plan. Now is the time for fishing residents to make sure the new program protects their access to local resources and sustains, instead...

Fish Factor: Halibut season gets off to slow startIt was unusually quiet along the waterfront as the halibut fishery got under way on Saturday. Most of the first fish landed goes to Homer, Kodiak and Petersburg, but processors there said there wasn’t “the usual chatter” and none said they had a feel for what’s going to happen yet with prices. Lo...